Detroit Lions Claim Former Bears Safety Chris Harris - Pride Of Detroit. With five wins on the season, the Lions had to be at the bottom of waiver priority list. I guess S Chris Harris would have been become a free agent if the Lions hadn't claimed him. Sean Yuille didn't really answer the one question I want to know: why did the Lions claim him?
They've had injury concerns in the past, but starting FS Louis Delmas hasn't missed a game this season and starting SS Amari Spievey has only missed one game. They certainly don't need a starter. If Harris was unhappy about sitting on the bench in Chicago, it looks like he could be doing the same in Detroit.
But Spievey was drafted as a cornerback, and converted to safety in 2010 because the Lions didn't have a better option. Maybe the Lions are interested in moving Spievey back to cornerback, and maybe they view Harris as their starting safety in the future, or later this season. While they could make the switch this season, it's probably too late to get Harris up to speed with the defense by this Sunday. Maybe they talked to Harris before they made the claim, and he's willing to sit on the bench in Detroit. While any of those possibilities could be true, none of them seem like an obvious explanation.
It's been a crazy couple of weeks for Chris Harris, and while my general impression of veterans released mid-season is that they're done, this might be a situation where a player just needed a change of scenery. The Bears might have inadvertently helped one of their main playoff rivals.